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WEEK 8 - DAILY PAGE 3
WHY...why do I find it so hard to start things? Why am I constantly caught between a sea of procrastination, and desert of serene nonchalance? It's not as if I don't realize that inaction wounds me; QUITE the opposite. I want to do things, I want to better myself as I so constantly repeat...but why can't I? What am I afraid of? Why can't I bring myself to take the first step--even in things I like to do, like writing? I have several theories, none of which get me anywhere save in circles:
1. Is it because I have lost all self-control? This was never a problem before UChicago, but I find my mind letting me indulge so completely in the momentary pleasures of the body that I physically cannot do anything. The comfort of my bed, the satisfaction of food, the beauty of music...I trick myself into believing that such things are what matter, when they are only the basics. I know they are meaningless in the eyes of society; who the heck cares that you can cook, when your grades are craptastic? I know these petty distractions are foolish, which bring me to mull my next question:
2. What am I afraid of? Is it possible that I can't bring myself to start doing things because I fear that, once I try, the illusion that was once me will vanish completely if I fail? It's a compelling argument that I've been mulling over for a long time now. Even (or especially?) when I'm on the brink of doing something I should or even want to, something stops me and I lose myself to distraction all over again. Wasted time breeds more wasted time in a vicious cycle hat I don't see the end of, else I'd be out of it already; it's a kind of forever that's self-propagating. The imminence of college's end and difficult life's beginning only serves to make me do even less, when I still can, perhaps even underachieve so I have even lower expectations for the latter.
Somehow, I go about doing these things with the perverse, subconscious confidence that I would have done better, had I only tried; what kind of faux-secret is that, what kind of idiocy am I serving? Eight weeks of writing, and I've found myself back at square one, trying to find something to again inspire myself with.
3. And then, sometimes, I wonder: is this permanent? Have I fallen into some kind of existentialist state of being, where I in fact only live for the meaningless, and am cursed to no longer have goals other than the momentary? I worry that I've turned into some boring, chaste Meursault, with some bizarre, obscenely practical rationale for my actions, suffering while caught in a prisoner's loop that I don't understand how I'm in, simply because I can't see far enough ahead to change what I'm doing.
I'm not sure what chills me more: the fact that I can come to this explanation as a possible reason, or to come to this explanation and still not do anything.
What is there to change?
WHY...why do I find it so hard to start things? Why am I constantly caught between a sea of procrastination, and desert of serene nonchalance? It's not as if I don't realize that inaction wounds me; QUITE the opposite. I want to do things, I want to better myself as I so constantly repeat...but why can't I? What am I afraid of? Why can't I bring myself to take the first step--even in things I like to do, like writing? I have several theories, none of which get me anywhere save in circles:
1. Is it because I have lost all self-control? This was never a problem before UChicago, but I find my mind letting me indulge so completely in the momentary pleasures of the body that I physically cannot do anything. The comfort of my bed, the satisfaction of food, the beauty of music...I trick myself into believing that such things are what matter, when they are only the basics. I know they are meaningless in the eyes of society; who the heck cares that you can cook, when your grades are craptastic? I know these petty distractions are foolish, which bring me to mull my next question:
2. What am I afraid of? Is it possible that I can't bring myself to start doing things because I fear that, once I try, the illusion that was once me will vanish completely if I fail? It's a compelling argument that I've been mulling over for a long time now. Even (or especially?) when I'm on the brink of doing something I should or even want to, something stops me and I lose myself to distraction all over again. Wasted time breeds more wasted time in a vicious cycle hat I don't see the end of, else I'd be out of it already; it's a kind of forever that's self-propagating. The imminence of college's end and difficult life's beginning only serves to make me do even less, when I still can, perhaps even underachieve so I have even lower expectations for the latter.
Somehow, I go about doing these things with the perverse, subconscious confidence that I would have done better, had I only tried; what kind of faux-secret is that, what kind of idiocy am I serving? Eight weeks of writing, and I've found myself back at square one, trying to find something to again inspire myself with.
3. And then, sometimes, I wonder: is this permanent? Have I fallen into some kind of existentialist state of being, where I in fact only live for the meaningless, and am cursed to no longer have goals other than the momentary? I worry that I've turned into some boring, chaste Meursault, with some bizarre, obscenely practical rationale for my actions, suffering while caught in a prisoner's loop that I don't understand how I'm in, simply because I can't see far enough ahead to change what I'm doing.
I'm not sure what chills me more: the fact that I can come to this explanation as a possible reason, or to come to this explanation and still not do anything.
What is there to change?